Nico shadow-traveled us straight to the seven. The laws of Olympus stated you may only ever enter by the elevator. If you get in any other way, you have to have the gods' permission. But getting out was different.
We scared them all, since it was still fairly dark, at four in the morning. Swords were at all of our throats before they recognized us. Well, at least their reflexes were good.
We told them what we had found out and thought about in Olympus. Suddenly Percy said, "Hey, look, an I.M."
We turned and saw the face of a girl, Thalia, through a shimmering rainbow. She was saying something we couldn't, hear, and then the sound came on. "…and they're only ten minutes away!"
"What was that, Thalia?" Annabeth asked.
"I said, an army! Monsters of every kind, the worst and most ancient ones! Tartarus is giving up every monster we've ever defeated! Even Kampê! The empousa Kelli! The manticore! We're in New Mexico. Actually…"
She looked around. "We're near the junkyard where Bianca died."
She looked back at Nico. "Hey, Neeks. Can you shadowtravel everyone here?"
He groaned. "Shadowtraveling is hard, people! I can, but there's no chance I'll be fighting. See ya."
Thalia waved her hand through the mist. Before the image dissolved, I saw a flight of silver Hunters' arrows streak past her.
"We have to go," Jason said. "Kay. Everyone – sorry, Neeks, man, - hold onto his shoulder, and let's go."
"You're not a praetor anymore, man," Percy said, but he did as Jason said, and Nico shadowtraveled away.
When we came out, it was even darker than back in New York, since we were so much farther west. Maybe an hour earlier. Anyway, we could hear the screams, howls, shrieks, grunts, moans, and various other noises of the monster army.
We were standing on a hilltop. Behind us was the famous junkyard where Bianca had died. In front of us was a desert plain. And on that desert plain was an army of the most terrifying monster army I've ever had the misfortune to see. Any monster, name it. And then each of those monsters times a few hundred.
The Hunters were stationed just next us, firing arrows faster than my eye could follow. Their hands were a blur, up to their quivers and down to their bows, nocking, pulling back, and firing within the space of two seconds. Each shot turned a monster to dust, but there were too many.
"Hold the hill!" Thalia called to us. "Keep the high ground!"
"You would think the gods could make another exception in their 'no direct involvement' rule for this," I grumbled. I drew my sword and faced the marching army. For once, the monsters seemed organized.
They were a hundred yards away. The Hunters' quivers never seemed to run out, and their arms were moving faster than ever. We had brought one child of Hecate with us, and she was shooting fireballs and lightning bolts. Leo was shooting fire, though he was making sure to keep up his strength. Jason summoned an occasional lightning bolt, and commanded the winds to throw a monster high up in the air, but we didn't affect the numbers at all. The desert was covered with them. They very well might just roll over the hill without losing any significant number of monsters.
Nico was lying flat on his back, exhausted. Frank had joined the Hunters in firing at the monsters, though he didn't fire nearly as fast. His special arrows exploded, sent up clouds of acid, or set traps, but it really didn't do anything to the army.
By now, so many monsters had been killed that a cloud of dust was rising from the army. But the Hunters started to tire, I could tell. They were firing slower.
Then the first monster touched the base of the hill. He instantly disappeared in a puff of smoke, of course, from a Hunter's arrow, but then the next line hit the hill. And the next. And the next. They just kept coming. Then the monsters to the left and right of the hill folded in on us. They charged.
The heroes fought well. Each one of them used their powers in the best way. But the monsters kept coming.
We killed so many that if there had been bodies left, we could have walled ourselves in. But we were tiring. Two Hunters had died in the five minutes of the battle, and four demigods. Piper had been wounded, and Frank had broken his shooting arm and passed out. Jason was flying just above the heads of the monsters, killing them with quick stabs to the head, but he was tiring faster than anyone.
I put myself well for a mortal. Having the ability to see through the mist helped. So did the fact I could fence when I lived with my family. But this wasn't fencing. I lost count of how many wounds I got, or how many monsters I killed. Many people think monsters are easy to defeat. They're not. Each one is as strong and fast as a regular human, and sometimes they have special powers. Demigods kill so many because they are so much stronger than a mortal. I, on the other hand, was a mortal. So it just came down to who was a better fighter.
Many times, actually, I had to be saved by a demigod fighting next to me. Once I got a monster's sword one centimeter away from my throat, but I was saved by slipping on the dewy grass and landing on my back. I finished off the monster with a quick upward thrust.
Then in the middle of fighting a Laistrygonian giant, I heard someone yelling, "Fall back! Back! To the junkyard!"
I turned and ran. Along with Percy and Nico, I fought my way through the thinnest group of monsters, and we joined the rest of the group. We climbed onto a pile of junk. The monsters charged toward us, but the distance gave us a tiny bit of breathing space. The archers in the group fired off three arrows apiece, twenty for the hunters, then they were on us again. I turned to Nico, wondering if he was strong enough to fight.
He was gone.
I fought my way along the line, toward Hazel, who was fighting a squad of dracaenae. I killed one, a Hunter's arrow took another, and Hazel killed the last two. As I fought, I asked Hazel if she knew where Nico was.
"No," she said, sparing a quick glance behind her. "Haven't seen him since we got here."
"Okay, thanks," I said. I looked around again. The Hunters had fallen back, and were covering the fighters on the front lines.
"Thalia!" I shouted.
From somewhere in the fight she shouted, "What?"
"Why are we here?"
"Prophecy!"
I didn't know what that meant. I shrugged and kept fighting. I fenced with a dracaena for a bit, then thrust through an opening and she disintegrated into dust.
I charged into the line. There was no way Nico could be captured, right? He was the most powerful demigod in history. But he was drained.
I blocked a strike from a Cyclops, kicked a telkhine in the face, then took the Cyclops' head. The telkhine was small enough for me to pick up and heave over the fighting, landing on a spear tip. A Laistrygonian swung his fist at me, but I dodged and stabbed him through the gut.
As he crumbled, a giant came up and slammed an axe down at me, missing me by a foot when I jumped away. He was one of the smaller ones, eight or nine feet tall. I jumped as high as I could, stabbing the sword through his chest and hanging on. As he crumbled, though, I saw a familiar dark shape being carried through the monsters' lines.
I yelled and kicked off. As I landed, I swung my sword, cutting through the back of another monster. I punched and shoved my way through the tightly packed army, so tight that they couldn't attack me very well. I used my sword when it got too thick.
I could se Nico being carried away, by two empousai. The thought that they were going to suck his blood made me force my way through harder.
Then I saw a blond head also forcing his way through the monsters. A Cyclops blocked his way, raising his club, but I sliced through his back. With a wail, he turned to dust.
Will Solace jumped through, and landed next to me. "Hey," he nodded.
"Hey," I nodded back. We fought our way through the monsters and came up to the two demons carrying Nico by the shoulders and ankles. I stabbed one through the chest, and Will took the other one out with a roundhouse kick.
We grabbed Nico, and started to drag him back. But he wasn't light, and there were too many monsters. Nico groaned, but he was still unconscious.
Then Jason shot through the air, grabbed Nico under the arms, and flew2 back to out lines.
"Well, that's great," I said. "Now what do we do?"
Again, we were fighting back to back. We fought well, but the monsters were just overwhelming us when…
Something sucked on us, like a vacuum. We flew through nothing, and landed on our feet next to a tired-looking Hazel. "Hey guys, " she said weakly.
"Thanks," I said. "We needed that."
"Yeah, well, try to take care of yourselves better next time," she said. She smiled, then her eyes rolled up in her head and she collapsed.
I carried her to the Hunters. But the battle continued, and it was not going well for us. We had lost another two Hunters and two demigods. Our numbers were lessening.
Then suddenly, as I stepped backwards, I tripped over something. I jumped to my feet, killed the monster with a shattering blow, and looked at what I had tripped over.
Pandora's jar. The gift has been given, I heard in my mind. It would appear, as it had to Percy, when I felt most like giving up.
Five books. One year. The pithos worked fast to be given to its next owner.
I ignored it, though in the back of my head I thought, I maybe could use it to bargain with. Maybe it wouldn't destroy the cave. The cave wouldn't matter, would it? Just a hole in the cliff. Tartarus could never destroy Olympus.
Of course, now I know it was a lot more than just a hole in rock. And that yes, Tartarus could very well destroy Olympus. But there was an urge.
I reached for the jar, but suddenly a Cyclops' club smacked me in the chest, sending me backward into a pile of metal scraps. He grinned and came toward me. An empousa followed. But then she stopped. She looked at the jar. She smiled an evil, toothy smile, and took the jar.
Now, if I had known then what I know now about the cave and Olympus being connected, I would have panicked and probably done something stupid. But as it was, there was just enough urgency to let me kill the Cyclops with a nice thrust and run after the empousa, waving to the Hunters to shoot her down. They did.
I picked up the jar. I felt like I could see the spirit of Hope inside, as Rachel had.
Then a monster charged at me. I sidestepped, tripped it into a pile of metal, and ran up to where Thalia was.
"Hey," I said.
She looked at me. "Hey, you're the kid who was fighting Alabaster yesterday!"
"Yeah," I said. "That's me. Hey, I don't know you too well, but—"
"Nope," she said, cutting me off. "I'm a Hunter. No dating, nothing."
"Not a date," I said. "I was just asking if you could keep this up here with your Hunters. It's Pandora's jar. Tartarus wants it, I think."
She shrugged. "Fine. I'll keep it safe."
I thanked her and slid down to the lines.
But the battle was a losing one, as I've said before. We were falling back, slowly but surely. The seven were all alive, so were Nico and Will, but there were plenty of dead demigods and Hunters.
Thalia seemed more agitated than I think the situation merited. A few times when I was fighting near her, she said something about the prophecy.
"What about the prophecy," I asked her.
"Child of Hades' ground," she said. "Bianca was a – ha! – child of Hades, and she is – oof! – buried here."
If any victory shall be found, Twill be on Hades' child's ground. The prophecy had said.
"But what if it's their victory?" I asked, decapitating a monster.
"Let's hope it's not," Thalia said.
I kept fighting.
